A bag holder of this general type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,592. According to that patent, a circular hoop is designed to engage the open end of a bag and is hinged to a supporting bracket so as to be swingable between a substantially vertical depending positon and a substantially horizontal utilization position. In the latter position, a cover normally overlying the hoop can be lifted off to give access to the bag.
A more refined version of such a bag holder, adapted to be installed in an automotive vehicle, is the subject matter of Austrian Pat. No. 360,427 issued Jan. 12, 1981. The holder described in this Austrian patent comprises a rectangular frame articulated to a mounting bracket and provided with a generally rectangular lid biased by a torsion spring into a closure position in which it is in all-around contact with the frame. An edge portion of the lid projects in this closure position beyond the frame and can be pushed by finger pressure to swing the frame from its depending position into its utilization position in which that frame is arrested by the mounting bracket. Continuing finger pressure then lifts the lid off the frame, against the force of the torsion spring, in order to give access to the upwardly facing open end of a bag suspended from a rectangular or square insert within the frame. This construction, accordingly, enables a user--such as the driver of a vehicle--to flip the frame and its lid with one hand from a withdrawn position into a position in which the bag is uncovered and accessible to receive small items of waste to be dropped into it with the same hand.
According to the description of the Austrian patent, the mounting bracket preferably consists of aluminum while the frame, the insert and the lid are made of plastic material. Indexing pins serving to retain the insert in the frame are described as metallic. Also shown as metallic is a throughgoing horizontal shaft which traverses an enlargement of the lid and serves as a fulcrum for the latter. The patent does not indicate by what means, if any, this shaft is prevented from accidentally sliding out of the holes in the sidewalls of the frame in which its ends are presumably received. Nor is it apparent how the torsion spring is anchored to the lid since only a stud on one of the sidewalls, engaged by a leg of that spring, has been illustrated.